


A Sweet Nuisance

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, direwolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 23:57:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19261789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: Jon brings a gift back for Sansa from beyond the Wall after many moons away.





	A Sweet Nuisance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vivilove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivilove/gifts).



> Written for Jonsa: A Dream of Spring--Day 2: Wolves 
> 
> Gifted to Vivilove for being so sweet and in thanks for all of her fics that are such a gift to this fandom! :)

Sansa hurried down the steps of the keep, pulling her cloak tight. It seemed silly to even bother with it, really, when she’d be rushing back up to take it off in mere minutes. 

Jon had been gone for more than a few turns of the moon now to visit the deep north and beyond the Wall. It had been well past time he traveled to the far reaches of his kingdom—or _theirs,_ rather, as he’d said before he left, the night they’d spent more awake rather than asleep even though he had much to do and far to ride the next day. Sansa was certain he would have many a tale to tell about his visits to the northern lords and the mountain clans, and while she was interested to hear how his proposition to the wildlings who’d refused to pass through the gates of Castle Black the first time had gone over, there would be plenty of suppers and council meetings over the next few days to discuss such. Tonight would be theirs alone. 

Ghost padded silently at her side, his long strides allowing him to easily keep up with her quick pace. She had fought Jon when he announced he would be leaving his direwolf in Winterfell, insisting he ought to take the wolf for his own protection, and that Ghost would be much happier out in the open, loping along on the road instead of cooped up in Winterfell. 

“At least this way I can sleep at night, knowing you’re safe,” Jon told her. 

“And what will I do?” she had asked, but Jon had barely left the sightlines of Winterfell before she was grateful for his insistence. Ghost was the closest thing to Jon himself, someone who understood without words, who sensed character as well or better than she could, who knew when she needed a kind eye or to bury her hands in his fur.

Still, she knew Ghost would rather be off hunting in the wolfswood than sitting beside her as she spent her days sewing, singing, and sitting by the fire with a book in hand. He would have all the time he wanted to do as he desired now though, once Sansa locked her door with only Jon behind it, and they had no need for escorts or protectors or attendants, no need for anything more than each other. 

She found she’d become as wanton as a wildling in his absence, craving his kiss, thirsting for his touch, aching for his embrace. It was shameful how often she had imagined Jon’s return over the past fortnight, ever since she’d received the raven he had at last turned back towards Winterfell. It was far more shameful how often she had imagined the night ahead with a hand between her legs. 

Sansa made it to the yard just in time to watch Jon slide down from his horse and hand the reins to one of his men. She rushed towards him, but before she could throw her arms around him and press herself up against him, he reached out and held her at arm’s length. 

“I have something for you,” Jon said, a smile playing on his lips. 

He started to remove his cloak. It wasn’t like Jon to make lewd jests or take a pass at her, especially out in the open, with most of Winterfell watching, no matter how she knew he felt on the inside, but oh, how she hoped he desired her half as much as she did him. 

Sansa felt her own demure mask slipping the longer he occupied his hands with something else other than her, no matter what it was. Would it be so unseemly for them to share a kiss, a few touches that bordered on moving beyond chaste? After all, they were man and wife, and surely all of Winterfell would suspect them of those things and more anyhow after they spent a few days abed in their chambers together. 

_If we make it there,_ a wicked voice whispered. She would have taken Jon against the haystacks in the stables it had been so long, if he wished. Or in the godswood, if he wished to pay his respects first. Or there were many an alcove along the way to their rooms…

Sansa chastised herself. Had her mind truly turned that slatternly while he had been away?

Jon drew away the edge of his cloak to reveal a bundle of white-grey fur tinted red rolled up beneath it. She squinted, not seeing why this was more imperative than a proper greeting for his wife… or improper, rather. Had he brought her the hide of a winter fox? A blanket knitted from beyond the Wall? 

Then she saw the outline of a nose and noticed the quickening of breath, and it turned its eyes on her. They were brown instead of golden, but they were also as sweet and curious as the first pair of those eyes Sansa had ever set her own sights on. 

No, not a fox, nor any kind of bed clothes. A wolf. A _direwolf._

“We found him on our way back,” Jon explained, cupping the pup gently between his hands as its eyes darted around to take in the surroundings. “He was orphaned, or abandoned. Left all alone.” 

_Like us,_ she thought, or at least how they had been until she found Jon again at Castle Black, and then found more still with him when they took back Winterfell. 

“Oh, Jon,” she gasped, not certain she knew the words to convey her gratitude. She knew she didn’t need them though, that Jon would understand even if no one else did. “You certainly have a knack for finding them, don’t you?”

She remembered the day Jon had brought Lady back, along with Robb and Bran and the rest of the pups. She had fallen in love in that instant, with Lady’s little mewls and whimpers, her delicate features, her kind nature. And even though the pup now staring back at her was a bit bigger, fluffier, and shyer, she felt the exact same way once more. 

“Aye, I suppose I do,” Jon said, and he seemed to know where her thoughts had taken her. “I know you miss Lady. She was taken too soon from you.”

“Thank you,” she said, not meeting his eyes because she knew hers would fill with tears. Instead she busied herself with the pup, brushing her hands over his soft fur. 

“He’s small now,” he said, “But I imagine he’ll grow fast with some care and proper nourishment.” 

Sansa took the bundle of fur in her arms and he licked her face. It was something Lady had never done, nor had she wanted her to, but when the laps didn’t stop, Sansa laughed. 

“All right, all right,” Jon said gruffly. 

“Your turn,” said Sansa, reaching up to kiss his cheek the way she did whenever they were not locked behind closed doors. She wrinkled her nose. “You need a bath.”

“Such kind words,” he said, grinning beneath his mock discontent. She knew he wanted nothing more than to get out of sight of his men, and he dismissed them with a wave as they headed to their chambers. 

 

 

“What else did you find?” Sansa asked once Jon settled into the bath. She knelt beside the tub, handing Jon soap and sponge as he scrubbed. 

He finished at last, leaning his head back against the edge and closing his eyes. “Death. Destruction. Dwellings deserted. More of the same.”

“Did you see them? The Others.” The water of the bath was nearly hot enough to scald her skin, but suddenly the room seemed cold as she thought of the creatures that had once only been part of Old Nan’s stories, until the men of the Night’s Watch saw the undead for themselves. 

“No,” he said. “And I don’t know if that worries me more.” 

Sansa couldn’t help but feel relief. As the days passed without word when his ranging party had headed beyond the sight of the Wall, past the haunted forest, and towards the lands of always winter, she had fretted if she would ever seen him again, if Jon would return one day with haunting blue eyes. 

When he opened his eyes now, they were still Stark grey, but dark, his pupils wide as they drank her in. “You could join me, you know.” 

Her cheeks flushed for reasons other than the steam rising from the bath. Soapy bubbles clouded the water, but she could still very much see every line of Jon’s bare chest, his scars, the bit of hair that angled down his abdomen as he sat up further to rest his arms on either side of the tub and make space for her… 

She glanced over to ensure the door was barred, and Ghost slept in front of it too, lest anyone intrude on their privacy. Even if they did, she reminded herself there was no impropriety in their actions as husband and wife. Well, perhaps most of the things they shared anyway, her mind recalling some of the more indecent ways Jon had pleasured her both in their marriage bed and out of it. 

Sansa made to stand when she heard a yelp and a tug on the back of her dress. She looked down to see the pup, where he’d fallen with the hem of her dress in his mouth, the stitching torn away. “Oh!” 

“He does that,” Jon grumbled, slumping back into the water. 

“Lucky I can fix it, then,” she said, sweeping the pup up into her arms again. 

He snuggled contentedly against her bosom, and Sansa couldn’t decide which she found more amusing: the adorableness of the pup or the look of pure envy on Jon’s face. 

 

 

Sansa had prearranged for supper to be brought up to their chambers, dissuading the kitchens from preparing a feast to welcome home the King in the North by insisting Jon would be tired and prefer to rest rather than revel and entertain guests after his long journey. The truth, though, was that she had planned on not leaving bed for something so trivial as food. 

Jon told her more of the good while they ate, the new lands Tormund had led his people back to beyond the Wall, the progress made on the keeps being built on the Gift, and how one of the clans leaders had praised Sansa’s leadership as Queen in the North and Lady of Winterfell, going even further to call her a true winter rose and a prized beauty, though the way Jon scowled when he said it, that might as well have fit in with the bad, too. 

The pup remained firmly curled to Sansa’s side as they ate, and she fed him scraps off her plate until he seemed to grow full and collapsed, sprawled beside her as he drifted off to sleep. 

“I spent two weeks traveling with him and never saw anything but a trembling ball of fur,” Jon complained while Sansa could do nothing but smile as the pup’s entire little body puffed and deflated with each of his tiny snores. 

She’d had the serving girls build a roaring fire, too, and that was where she sat beside Jon with a cup of spiced wine after their meal. “Jon hasn’t had a proper hearth in months,” she explained, asking them to stack up extra wood beside it as though that were for him as well and not to keep her from freezing during the night when her clothes would lay on the ground or wherever Jon dropped them in haste instead of against her skin. 

Their cups soon sat empty, their attention instead turned to one another. The bed was not far, but on the furs in front of the fire would serve well enough, Sansa mused, as Jon initiated a languid kiss. After long, cold nights by herself, thinking of Jon’s touch and the warmth of his body against hers, anything was most welcome.

She took his bottom lip between hers, intending to deepen their kiss, and he responded eagerly, letting his tongue slide against hers as he pulled her into his lap. Her hands moved to slip through his beard, then to undo the laces of his tunic, and then to appreciate the muscles of his chest and arms as she did away with his shirt entirely. 

“Ouch,” Jon hissed and pulled away. 

She frowned; Jon was rather sensitive in some areas, she’d learned, but not there. She glanced down to see him glaring at the impressions of two small sets of teeth on his hand between thumb and forefinger. 

Ever mindful of Jon’s mood, Ghost raised his head from his paws, cast a baleful look at the perpetrator from across the room, and growled low. 

“Are you hurt?” Sansa might as well have asked the pup himself, for he whimpered in response before Jon had a chance to speak. 

“No, not truly,” Jon groused, easily rubbing away the bite marks and leaving the only casualty as the moment ruined. “He’ll need to learn his manners, if he’s to live in a castle with a queen.” 

Sansa only giggled at both of their expressions as the pup took the opportunity to crawl back into her lap, nothing but gentle and affectionate as Sansa pet him. 

“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said. “Once he has settled in. Once he knows he belongs here. Once he knows that he’s a Stark.” 

“You certainly have a knack for that,” he said, settling back on the furs to watch the pup preen beneath her touch. 

Sansa remembered the day she first assured Jon of it, when they stood up on the ramparts after they had taken back Winterfell, and the time she had affirmed it, when she had cloaked him in their house colors as he took her to wife. They were two of her fondest memories, and she suspected one day in the future, this very moment may be one, too. 

“What will you name him?” Jon asked. “‘ _Nuisance’_ suits, I think.” 

“No, not for my sweet one,” she said, wondering how he would grow up. Would he still wish to cuddle with her like this, one day when he was larger than the rug on which they sat? Would he be as swift as Ghost, and brave and strong? Time would tell. 

“All right, _‘Sweet Nuisance,’_ then,” Jon said, but he followed it up with a smile. 

“He’ll grow on you,” Sansa said, lifting the pup so she could press a kiss to the top of his head. “As I did.”

There would be time for that though, and time to think of a fitting name for her pup, something to honor Lady, perhaps, or one of the seasons, or a hero from one of the stories she loved. 

And there would be time for other things later too, she thought, as Jon yawned. 

As Sansa glanced around their chambers and happiness welled up in her chest, she couldn’t help but feel as though time itself had been turned back to that very first day she’d held a direwolf in her arms, when she’d been in her home, with her family, and it seemed as though all the dreams she’d wished for were on the verge of coming true, and she realized she had all those things once more.


End file.
